The garden is quiet around us. The lights bob gently, casting soft shadows across her face.
I want to say so many things.
I’m sorry.
I never wanted to hurt you.
I don’t deserve any of this.
I think I’m falling in love with you and it terrifies me.
Instead, I settle on something safer.
“I meant what I said. I don’t want anything from you.” My voice is rough, barely holding together. “Just… this. Just you not being afraid of me.”
Kaia is quiet for a long moment.
Then she steps closer.
“I’m not afraid of you, Darian.”
She reaches out — slowly, carefully — and wraps her arms around me.
I freeze.
Every muscle in my body locks up, because I don’t know what to do with this. Don’t know how to hold something this fragile without breaking it.
But then her shadows curl around us both, soft and warm, and something in me shatters.
I wrap my arms around her and hold on like she might disappear. Like this might be the last good thing I ever get to have.
She smells like woodsmoke and magic and… and, Kaia. The bond hums between us — quiet, almost aligned. Not wrong anymore.
Not wrong at all.
She pulls back first.
But she’s not cold or distant.
She gives me one last look — soft, unreadable, but not afraid — and then she turns and walks back toward the house.
I watch her go. She looks back once, almost as if she’s committing it to memory, and disappears around the corner.
The garden dims around me, the lights fading slowly as my magic settles. I should go inside. Should rest. Should prepare for tomorrow.
But I can’t. Because even though she’s gone, I can’t bring myself to turn away from this beautiful moment.
A flicker of movement catches my eye.
I look up, expecting Finnick or one of the other shadows come to judge me.
Instead, I find Walter.
He bobs lazily near the garden wall, starlight rippling through his form like captured moonbeams. The same impossible little shadow that found me in my cell all those months ago.
“You,” I breathe. “You were there. In the dungeons.”
Walter just bobs in acknowledgment.
